Sunday, December 28, 2008

Wow. Is it really christmas? It is a nice, toasty, shortsleeve day here. My tan is looking good, ive got tan lines all over, and i carry around a water bottle sometimes because its so hot. Anyone care to trade climates?

Christmas Patagonia style is a bit different. The big holiday is christmas eve, which is called buen noche here. Its basically like the fourth of July. We live on the 4th floor of our apartment building, so later tonight, well be venturing up on the roof top not for reindeer paws nor santa claus, but for a night of fireworks and eating food. It will be fun! the typical holiday dish here is called an Asado (bar b que) its basically a big thing of meat that they grill for a while on rebarb over the coals. Its pretty good. But typical argentine food-- tons of salt, tons of fat. I feel like a surgeon most meals as i delicately slice off all the enormous chunks of fat to get to the good stuff. I am surprised people here dont just have heart attacks here left and right-- all they do is eat fatty beef, bread, oil, salt, and more fat. haha.

Right now in our zone, we have 10 elders and 2 hermanas. None are latinos, so we are going to have to figure out a way to cook our Asado. I am nervously anticipating what it is going to taste like...

News for this week before i get back to christmas and such: We had 3 baptisms this weekend!!! Bryan Cabrera (brother of ivan, son of vanesa) was baptized by yours truly on saturday and confirmed on sunday. Monica passed her interview on saturday and was baptized on sunday with her daughter, Selene. Both were great experiences. I was especially happy with brian´s. He is kinda a goof ball who dresses up like a rapper for fun and i was kinda nervous about his commitment and desire to be baptized. As we were changing afterwards, we were talking and i just said well you are the newest member of the church. How does it feel? he said great, really peaceful, that he had been nervous but now he feels good. I told him thats the spirit. a minute later he said im also the most perfect member of the church now too, huh? yep. another few seconds. And probably the wettest! haha. I love this kid. I am nervous to see what the next two days will bring for their family because the mom wants to go to Buenos Aires to be with her new boyfriend Maxi. Its a tough decision because she thinks thats whats best for her and her family, but my companion and i disagree, and so do the boys. Its a delicate thing because we cant get into that too much, so we have to sit on the outside and pray that they make the best decision for their family. Its turned into a bit of a jerry springer affair with this whole family. The ex husband got inot a fight with his nephew this past weekend and it was really bad. We are just really hoping and praying for peace and love between these two families and that both will reconcile and do what is best for everyone. It is a hard time right now for both sides. Well see what happens.

Other news, We got the standard again last week!! weve now done it twice, and we are the only ones in the mission to have gotten it. It is truly a blessing i dont feel worthy of recieving because we have many weaknesses. I am not a great teacher or a great spanish speaker, we have a few issues with obedience, and yet somehow the Lord has decided to bless us with these baptisms and has allowed us the privledge of helping these people enter in. It is something i take very seriously and is something that daily i strive to better myself so that i can merit more and be a better tool in His hands.

I am so greatful for this opportunity i have to be a missionary at this time in Patagonia. It is an honor, and a blessing to be sharing this gospel. It is always an adventure, every day i wake up more tired that i was when i fell asleep, but thats the way it goes. We are allowed to stay out until 9 working or 930 if we are teaching a lesson and i think every night this week we have stayed out till 930. Thats something that i like. We are maximizing our time and finding a lot of good people to teach. We are running out of good progressing investigators though because we are baptizing them all! its also tough with the vacations here. a lot of our people are out of town till the first week of january. But we are always progressing, always striving, and always have a lot more to learn. I take very seriously my calling as a representitive of Jesus Christ, and i know that the things i am doing here are better than anything else i could be doing at this time with my life. It is so worth all the feelings of exhaustion, hunger, thirst, homesickness, and discouragement to have people like Carlos who was baptised on the 9th. He is set to recieve the priesthood this coming sunday and we talked to him on monday night about it. He said he had his interview with the bishop about it and then came home and cried because he felt so privledged to hold the power of the Lord. What a man! how many converts respect it that much and are that excited about it? how many members? It has been a privledge to work with him, to see him quit smoking in 4 days because he knew this church is true. The work is fantastic. Not everyday is great. Monday and tuesday here were really tough. But is it worth it? always. Always.

In mosiah 4 or somewhere around there, it talks about us not running faster than we have strenghth, but being diligent in all things. Or something like that. that scripture has really hit me this week. I have been stressed about the missionary i am and who i am becoming and expecting myself to just be this incredible book of mormon type missionary or somthing. But thats not who i am called to be. The Lord called Taylor Jensen to be a missionary. And yes, i sure have to do my part in diligently studying my scriptures and ensign and stuff in teh mornings (which, by the way, may be one of my favorite parts of the day), but i am me. I just have to do the best i can and that is what He asks. I will grow and learn and speak better as i go on, but i am not expected to be a book of mormon type missionary now. That will come :) I can stop stressing and calm down and listen to the spirit as i teach rather than worrying about what i am going to say or what words i am going to use as i say it. Ah what a blessing and relief the scriptures are for me.

I think i am about out of time, so take care, have a wonderful christmas, go sit in the snow for me, tell your families you love them, and be sure to be in bed by midnight or santa wont come!

I love you all. Thanks for your support and prayers.Until Monday,Merry Christmas!Love, Taylor Jensen

Monday, December 15, 2008

Is it really almost Christmas? What happened to thanksgiving? and Snow? someone told us it touched 30 something centigrade. It gets HOT down here!!! i wish there was snow... but thats alright. Itll be a fun christmas walking around sweating in my short sleeve shirt.

News this week... Well we had a Zone Conference on friday, then a saturday night and sunday morning session of Stake conference. It was great. We had Pres. Cook and his wife, the Temple President and his wife, and Elder Shayne M Bowen of the 70. The three meetings were all very powerful and made me realize changes i need to make. It was great. We werent able to have a baptism because it is stake conference, but we got everything else in the key indicators! Id call it a success. Elder bowen came up to me and elder valencia and said ´just want to let you know, i was sitting with Pres. Cook and he leaned over and pointed you out and said ´see those two elders? they are obedient with exactitud and they are successful and they are baptizing. They are an example for our missionaries´Thats what the Lord wants from you. its what He expects from you. We both didnt really have anything to say other than wow. Thanks. We are trying with all our might. It was a good conversation to say the least!

One thing i learned twice (once in a testimony during zone conference and again during elder bowens talk) is that every meeting, we need to learn something. If we dont have something we remember weve learned or something that we are going to change, we havent been listening to the meeting and more importantly the Holy Ghost. Heavenly father is trying to teach us, trying to have us learn something and if we dont come out of a meeting having learned somethign new or changed something about us, the meeting didnt have any value. I need to work on that, especially here in spanish land! haha. (my spanish, ps, is getting a lot better. I am being pretty diligent about learning and working on my vocab. I can do better, and i will the coming weeks so that by the new year, i can be fine in any conversation. We are getting there. WE being me and my spanish brain. haha.

Right now we are preparing for a big weekend... we had 4 baptisms lined up, but Julia decided to go to the beach instead of church. Its really hard sometimes teaching people the importance of church when it just hasnt been a part of their life before. It is all too easy to find excuses for why not to do something. And i dont have too much of a problem with her going to the beach with her family. We just need to stress really strongly the importance of coming to church in the morning and then heading off to the beach. We have a cool new sheet that is kind of a path or map to baptism with all the things you need to learn on it. its kind of like a check list type of thing. We started that with her, and she was all ready to go to both sessions of conference, but last second pulled out. It was a bit disheartening, and showed us we just have to teach it more strongly, with more importance, because it really is that important that we go to church.

Other people- We had a mother and daughter lined up for this weekend, but we ran into a little problem with interviews, so hopefully that will get settled out and they can get baptized this weekend. We´ll have to see. The mother was really down yesterday afterwards, so we really hope we can get this resolved so she doesnt build a wall in her head against the church.

Our last one is Brian, older brother of Ivan and son of Vanesa. We are working really hard with him to get him baptized now because his family situation is up in the air with where his mom is going to go and if they are going with her. He is a good kid. He just needs some guidance. Thats what we are here for, right? They as a family have been really fun to watch. For years, they have struggled in family unity. Now, with the gospel, they are saying prayers together over their meals (which are pretty sparing because they dont have a fridge, stove, or anything besides a sink anymore) We are just trying to get them reading as a family. Its interesting being a first hand witness of the changes families make as a result of the gospel and of the blessings those changes bring. By next week, we hope to have a lot of change in terms of respect one towards another. This week, we are really going to focus on helping them build una casa del espiritu. WEll see how it goes.

Elsewhere, hmmm. the week hasnt had too too much going on. We are working with the baptismal dates we had. We are working now on getting some new people to teach. We are really going to work on using the members because they are the key in getting good investigators. Our efforts contacting do not work that well in getting solid investigators. The member references are so much better. We really love setting up Noche De Hogars with people and using that to get people teaching new investigators and such. Which leads me to ask you, my fellow readers, What have you done to help the missionaries this month?? Ill give you a couple of options-- Family home evenings (these are key) Inviting them to a ward activity, or going on splits with the missionaries. It is the Members responsibility to find, the missionaries to teach and baptize, and the members to retain. And of course the members help teach and baptize, and the missionaries help retain and find too. but it is very effecient to have members giving solid references. Escecially now in Christmas time, it is easy to work something in about Christ and His love and the restored gospel. Go For it!!

I really dont have too much more to say this week... Onwards and upwards always!! Its always so much fun realizing i have so much to learn and that i can never hit a plateau on the things i am learning or on things like faith and patience. I can always get better! (sometimes thats a little daunting too). But the work is good here. We are happy, and excited for Christmas, and excited to have a white christmas--baptism style!

i love you all, and i dont know exactly what our plans are for next week in terms of christmas and such. I think christmas eve is a Pday, so i may get on and write a bit after my phone call home. Ill let you know for sure in a bit... i may have to get on and send a quick email later this week when we find out for sure. I love you all, have a good winter break, and play in the snow for me. But my white christmas is going to be more fun :)

With LoveElder Taylor Jensen

PS. Big news. Hedwig had 2 eggs a couple weeks ago. One hatched halfway and then disappeared, and hedwig was sad. We hadnt seen her for 2 weeks, so we assumed the worst. We actually saw like 5 dead pigeons and every time we were like áww hedwig! but big news! shes back, with another new egg, so we have 2 again, and she and her husband, pidwigeon, are building a better nest so their new babies cant escape. Its a joyous day for us! our friends are back! the end.